History of Mallet Percussion

The mallet percussion instruments are one of the oldest musical instruments invented, and probably the first pitched instruments made by man. The oldest surviving musical instruments is a stone marimba or lithophone discovered by the French ethnologist, George Condominas, in 1949, near the village of Ndut Lieng Krak, Vietnam1. Primitive man made mallet percussion instrument with other material, such as wood or gourd. It is the first type of "Xylophone". The Biblical reference to the "ugab" dates a fully developed wooden mallet percussion instrument from 3,500 B.C. 2. It is a "portable" instrument with bars of different lenght suspended on a frame over gourd or bamboo resonators. Different version of Primitive xylophones are found in different parts of the world, mainly among the African and the Orient culture. The "Marimba Sencilla", developed from the decendent of African Xylophone, has about forty five keys, each with a gourd resonators.It was played by three to five players. According to Vida Chenowith, the first chromatic Marimba was made by Jose Chaequin and Manuel Lopez. It was presented to the public in Guatemala in 1874. The chromatic Marimba was refined by Sebastian Hurtado. He replaced the gourd resonators with wooden cones that has one end covered with mambrane. This six and a half octaves Marimba Grade is the national musical instrument of Guatemala 3. The Marimba was first introduced to the America in 1908 by the Hurtado family marimba band. The group performed on a tour that lasted three years. Other Guatemala marimba groups follow suit and soon created a big trend in entertainment scene. Due to the extreme porpularity of Marimba playing, companies such as Deagan started to develop and manufacture different form of " xylophone". There is no standard form developed yet. Most of the instruments were custom made and some models were so different that it hardly classified as a "marimba" from the modern stand point. The most famous Deagan marimba is the King George model. It was built in 1934 for the marimbas orchestra of Clair Omar Musser, specifically for their 1935 European tour 4. Marimba todays are far more standardized compare to those made in the earlier part of 20th century. Most marimbas has rose wood bars, with some form metalic resonators. The resonators are of different shapes, some are oval, some are round and some are square, depends of different manufacturer. The material of the resonators differ between manufacturer as well. The most common material used are alluminium, metal, and brass. All resonators are close with a cap at the far end and some has tunable resonators(resonator with movable caps). The range of the instruments varies depending on the model, and it is fairly standardized among manufacturers, mainly 4, 4.3, 4.5 and 5 octaves with the second C above treble staff as the highist note. The only non standardized element between different made marimbas is the lenght and the width of the bars. The distance between the lowest octave on a Malletech 5.0 is as wide as a tenth on the lowest keys on a Marimba One 5.0.

Types of Mallet Instruments

Xylophone

Vibraphone

Marimba

Chimes

Bells vs. Glockenspiel

Grips and Hand Positions

Traditional Grip

The specific date of the invention and it's inventor is unknown, but it was believed to be around 1900. It is widely used because the initial learning of the grip is very easy and the operation of the grip is very simple that it takes relatively short amount of time to master the technique. The mallets crossed inside the palm with the outside mallet underneath (with palm facing down). The thumb and 1st finger go between the mallets and function as the mechanism to increase interval by spreading the mallets apart. The 3rd and 4th finger apply counterpressure to hold the interval in place and with the aid of the thumb they function as the mechanism to decrease interval by pushing the mallets together. It is widely used by orchestral percussionist to play four mallet orchestra excerpts for the strength and security it offered.

Burton Grip

It was invented around 1960s by the famous Vibraphonist, Gary Burton. The Burton grip is also a cross stick grip as the traditional except that the outside mallet is on top of the inside mallet instead. The interval is open by pulling the end of the inside mallet with the 3rd and the 4th finger away from the palm and the closing of the interval is achieved by performing the contrary. The middle finger touches the shaft of the outside mallet slightly lower then where the two mallets cross. The middle finger holds the outside mallet in place and provides a great amount of strength and security for the outside mallet. A Burton grip player normally make use of this advantage and use the outside mallet to play melodic passages, passages that require a lot of speed or loud dynamic range. The Burton Grip is normally use by Vibraphonist. Very rarely would one find a marimbist playing the marimba with the Burton Grip, partly because it is just not the tradition and most importantly the bars on a marimba is so much wider that it adds a great level of technical difficulty to the operation of the grip.

Musser Grip

It was invented around 1920s by the probably greatest keyboard percussion player of the 20th century, Clair Omar Musser. The grip operates with the palm facing down position as the Traditional and Burton Grip, except for rolls when the hand position switch to vertical( thumb facing up). The mallets do not cross in the hand. The 3rd and 4th finger held the outside mallet and the thumb, 1st and 2nd finger held the inside mallet. The interval is opened by pushing the thumb and the 1st finger out and to the side, pivoting the inside mallet on one point in the palm, closing the interval is achieved by performing the contrary. As a result of the mallet independence of the grip, it allows the application of finger control( using fingers to aid the acceleration of the mallets) over a single mallet. This is a great advantage for playing transcription of classical and early Romantic literature, or composition in these style. However, this grip did not maintain its great popularity because it is not very easy to learn and the grip is too weak and insecure for loud dynamic passages.

Stevens Grip

It was introduce in 1971 by the renown marimbist Leigh Howard Stevens. Mr. Stevens prefer to call his grip the "modified Musser Grip". As it is implied in Mr. Stevens' term, the grip is very similar to the Musser Grip except that it operates with a thumb-facing-up position at all times with some exception, and that the inside mallet does not pivot at one point in the palm but rather moving in a curved line in the palm when the interval is spreading. The 3rd and 4th finger held the outside mallet and the thumb 1st and 2nd finger held the inside mallet with the tip of thumb on the inside mallet at all times. The interval spread by rotating the inside mallet up and out with the thumb, 1st and 2nd finger, "drawing" a smooth curve line in the air. The weight of the inside mallet transfer from the 1st finger to the 2nd finger as the interval spreads. It is one of the most if not the most employed grip nowadays, due to its great ability to execute large intervals such as tenth, rapid interval changes, fine independent control over each mallet individually, ability to play one handed roll, just to name a few.